Welcome to Litsy!

I'm 70 pages in. I've read a fair bit about Stalin. For me the details about the Holodomor and Ukraine are new.

This book chronicles 1930s to post WWII in Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Russia etc with comparisons between Hitler and Stalin. It was ironic to read about the starvation of Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s by Lenin and hear the same cities in the war in Ukraine news reports. Not romanticized history, however, this is the most complete WWII book I‘ve read.

I finished this history a few weeks ago. Timothy Snyder is the penultimate historian of 20th century Eastern Europe. I was seeking clarification on the complicated relationships between Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany. And this book certainly added depth to my understanding of how the roots of the past can grow into today‘s conflicts. It was difficult to hear all the gruesome, cruel ways people used to kill each other not long ago.

“Now we will live!” This is what the hungry boy liked to say, as he walked along the quiet roadside, or through the empty fields. But the food that he saw was only in his imagination. The wheat had all been taken away, in a heartless campaign of requisitions that began Europe‘s era of mass killing.

#FirstLineFridays #FridayReads

I feel like I would have liked this better if I hadn‘t listened to the audio. I was afraid right from the start, though, when I heard the voice. Male voice (already a bad sign for me), and I‘m sure I recognized it from another audio that didn‘t hold my attention. There were parts that did, though, particularly about the starvation of the people in the Ukraine. Overall, I‘m considering it ok.

Humans are the real #Monsters #Marchintooz

I'm sick on a Friday, it's raining, it's finally BK Summer season, and it took an assignment from my seminar prof to get me to FINALLY sit down with Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands and read it cover to cover.

Just a little light reading while I'm home sick from work 😳😞